Would like to make a bit of a guide to tanking, a scrapbook of tips, for FH2, because it occurred to me today I don't think I've gotten any better tanking the more I've played. I know I'm a better inf player than I was a month ago, for example, but I feel like I've peaked tanking and I still run into a fair amount of situations where I sit like a duck in the middle of the battlefield, trying to decide what to do next.
So here's a thread for anyone and everyone to post tanking questions, share tips and tricks, give advice etc.
Here are a few of my tips:
1- Never underestimate the power of smoke shells. The uses for them are infinite: cover yourself while repairing, allow teammates to advance on a flag, all obvious uses for it, but they aren't the only ones. Fire a smoke shell on the route of attack you/your team isn't taking, and enjoy watching the enemy prepare to defend only to be shot in the ass a minute later. If you spot a tank you have no chance of taking out, fire a smoke shell right at him to blind him and freak him out a bit. I shot a smoke shell at the KT on Goodwood in my very early days of FH2 and watched him charge blindly through the smoke only to drive right across the line of sight of our Firefly.
2- Relocate, relocate, relocate. Just generally whatever you're doing in FH2 this is good advice but especially tanking. I spend enough time thinking 'Now where the fuck did that Panther go?' while nervously holding my PIAT to my chest and running around like a headless chicken to know that you should never remain in the same spot for more than 20 or 30 seconds. Having been blasted out of my M36 on Meuse a few days ago the first two times I sat still to defend a flag, the next time I played the round that I got the M36 I made a point to zoom around the map as best I could, never standing still for any longer than it took to fire a shell. That round, I took out 13 tanks before I died, including the Jagdpanther and KT twice each. I ran out of HVAP, used half my HE, ran out of smoke shells and had only three normal AP rounds left. One magical killstreak doesn't prove anything, but when you're tanking try to remember how more effective you are when the enemy is thinking 'Where did he go?' and trying to update his team on your location, then for him to be on the otherside of the wall listening to your engine while directing comrades to your position.
3- Know your goal and stick to it. I said in the M1 Carbine tips thread I liked the US engy kit because it allowed me to deal with anything the enemy throws at me, and I approach tanking the opposite way. I try to have a goal in mind - slaughter inf, attack enemy tanks, be a distraction, etc. and I stick to it. Don't take a Sherman to try and hunt Panthers on Cobra - take a Sherman to blow the city flags to kingdom come. Don't take an M10 and switch to HE every time you see a crunchie running along a road - ignore him and continue hunting for armor. It seems counter-intuitive but it is often beneficial, I find, to do this. If you switch to HE and nail that German running along in front of you, that tells the Panzer IV that may be just out of site you're reloading, and probably reloading HE. The Sherman is horrible for tank hunting, everyone knows that, but it may be the best anti-inf tank in the game. Grab it on Goodwood and if you see armor, high-tail it out of there and go for more squishies. Grab a fast tank and be a distraction to enemy forces to allow other tanks to attack.
I'll start us off with some questions and hopefully some of you can chime in with your own questions in here.
1- What kit do you usually take? I never take limited ones (no one should), but often I find myself taking scout kits instead of engineer kits, the thinking being I'm in a Sherman and likely to be 1-shot killed anyway, so I may as well take a kit with binoculars to maybe spy other tanks in the distance before they see me.
2- Is there a way to stop your tank moving when you're not perfectly level? Anti-tank guns when you stop rolling them have a 5ish second wait before they stop rolling, and then they're nice and still. Tanks don't seem to have this luxury as far as I can see, apart from switching to another position, letting the tank stop (engine off), and then going back to position 1. This (rarely) works.
3- Do you guys load special ammo first or save it? I used to try to save them but too often I'd come over a hill and be killed by a tank I could've killed first had I had the special ammo loaded, so now I load it first and hope for the best. The only time I don't do this is when I have the M36 on Meuse, where I use normal AP until I spot the KT.